"As far as the style of architecture is concerned, my emphasis was on simplicity for the inside as well as the outside. The site of the building, its proximity to both the Royal Palace and the Zeughaus, required a very monumental building. Therefore, I preferred one giant order for the great front columnar hall, rather that two separate expressions for the two main stories. As far as the architectural impression is concerned, the columnar hall primarily relates to the rotunda which measures more than double the height of the two individual stories. This devise relates the height of the hall to the height of the rotunda. The building, surrounded on all sides by either Ionic joists or the Ionic columnar hall with pilasters at the four corners, illustrates through all these parts a simple noble main structure into which the floors are inserted in a subordinate manner."
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Collection of Architectural Designs (Chicago: Baluster Books Incorporated, 1984), p. 42.